“You sure you know how to—”
He stopped talking as he watched her grab a clip, load the gun, and practice her aim on one of the paintings in the room. When she was done, she let the hand holding the gun hang to her side and used her other hand to point back in the chest.
“Hand me that Mac 19 with that banana clip too, please. I need to borrow a pair of your cargo shorts. All the shit Keys got for me is too tight to conceal shit.”
* * *
“Okay, so tell us everything that you know about the property.”
It was almost eight o’clock, and Stevelle’s living room was filled with eight people. She’d already met Mook, Keys, and, of course, Stevelle. She was introduced to Rello, Monty, Teezo, Trent, and Li’l Tay. They all showed her the utmost respect the moment they walked in the house and were all locked, loaded and ready to go.
“There is a gate to get into the community where at least three men stand watch. On the house are rotating security cameras on every side, and each wall has two men manning it. My mother Cat never liked the thought of having my dad’s hired hands roaming the house as we slept, so there are none in the house. That’s why my father went to the extent of having so much outside security. Nobody can get in that bitch.”
“Okayyy.” Keys looked at her from where she sat next to Li’l Tay on the couch across from her. “How the fuck we supposed to penetrate that bitch then? If it’s sewn up like that.”
“Yeah, if shit is that tight, how we gon’ get through without being seen?”
Tiara grinned at all of them, and they looked at her like she was a madwoman. She cocked her head and wrinkled her forehead.
“Y’all must have forgotten that I actually lived there for most of my life. My daddy was as strict as they came; he wouldn’t let me go anywhere.”
“Once again, okayyy,” Keys said, not understanding the point that Tiara was getting at. She hoped Stevelle didn’t call them over for a rogue mission, because she was the kind of person that valued her time. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“What do kids who are confined to the house do when their parents won’t let them do anything?”
Keys pondered the question for a second before the lightbulb went off in her head.
“They sneak out.”
“Bingo!”
“We’re gonna sneak in through the window in the basement. The only people roaming the house are gonna be the housekeepers.”
“What if they aren’t there?”
“They will be,” Tiara told her.
Before they had all got there, Tiara and Stevelle had sat down and put together an entire game plan. A game plan that she was now explaining in full to the rest of the team. She told all of them the story of how she snuck out of the house to go on a date, and how she got back in the house the exact same way.
“How do you know it will work again?” Li’l Tay asked in a voice a little higher pitched than the rest of the men there. “That was so long ago. They might have fixed the cameras or changed up how they set up their security team.”
“I doubt they changed shit up,” Tiara responded. “My father set all of that up, and it was practically perfect. I highly doubt Vincent or Cat would change it up even after all of these years. I know it will work,” she assured them.
“How though?” Mook asked. “I’m all for backing you up, Princess, but I ain’t tryna run into a setup.”
“If I know anything about the Rogers, it is that we don’t fix anything if it isn’t broke, or if we don’t know it’s broken. I never got caught, which means the blind spot was never found, and I’m positive that even if it isn’t the same guard working the post, they have the same habits. At midnight, there is a shift differential; nobody will be manning that post. I’m sure of it.”
The room got quiet. She looked around, taking a mental note of the uncertainty that read clear as water on their faces. Suddenly, she felt a surge of rage, and her inner Blake surfaced.
“Y’all are sitting around here like y’all don’t trust me,” she spoke standing up and talking with her hands. “When really it’s me putting everything on the line. Not you. I’m the one with a fuckin’ bounty on my head. It’s already crossed my mind that any of y’all could have just offed me and collected that money. But I’m standing here putting all my trust in you. So now I need y’all to put your trust in me too. If this shit goes the way I need it to go, I’m going to need each and every one of you around me. I have been through so much bullshit in my life, but this? This ain’t bullshit to me. This is my legacy, and I need it. I need it just as much as I need y’all; and trust and believe when I take back what’s mine and I get on that throne, I will make sure every single one of you is taken care of. I put that on my life.”
All of them, including Stevelle, wore shocked expressions, but still nobody said anything. Just when she was about to tell them fuck it and that she was going to go by herself, Keys spoke up.
“Shit, fuck it.” She threw her hands up. “I already cancelled my pussy for the night, and I packed enough rounds in the trunk to take out a small army.”
“Yeah, man, I’m already here,” Monty said. “This could be a good move for me.”
“For the record, Princess,” Mook’s voice filled the living room, “Vincent’s money ain’t
